Competition, ease of use is GSA's focus for next generation telecom contract

Jason Miller, executive editor, Federal News Radio

The strategy under development for the Network Services 2020 telecommunications
contract is focused on expanding the number of vendors offering services.

During the creation of the current contract, called Networx, the General Services
Administration inadvertently limited competition to five large carriers.

But officials say this is one of several ways GSA is listening, learning and
improving the suite of contracts under NS2020.

"Open up this deal," said Fred Haines GSA's program manager for NS2020 Enterprise
Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) acquisition. "What I don't want to happen is what
happened under Networx back in the day. What should be the minimum requirement,
geographic, to provide a compliant proposal? We based ours on: It's global,
figured we will tier it and those larger corporations like the Networx providers
who may or not make a decision not to lose the business they have would bid that
capability so it would be the continental United States and outside the
continental United States. But what about the national-based carriers? So, we came
up with a concept of core-based statistical areas — metropolitan areas
— we did extensive analysis on that, and we came up with looking at our
market analysis, who we think may be willing to play this time. It's a double-
digit number. What should that minimum geographic requirement be?"

Industry members tried to answer that question as part of their responses to the
request for information for EIS. Answers were due Thursday
afternoon.

$7 billion to $8 billion telecom market

As of now, GSA plans on breaking down the U.S. into three regions —
northeast, central and western — and if a carrier only provides services out
west, but not in the east, they can bid just in that geographic region.

Haines, who along with Kevin Gallo, GSA's NS2020 program manager, spoke Thursday
at the Independent Telecommunications Pioneer Association (ITPA) in Arlington,
Virginia, said no matter what GSA eventually settles upon, it will be all about
getting more players to bid on the solicitation. GSA estimates the addressable
market in government around telecommunications is between $7 billion and $8
billion.
He said the end goal is to make sure the winners under the two other regional
contracts can provide quality service to the government wherever they bid.

Competition is one of several approaches GSA is considering that builds off of the
lessons learned and
mistakes under Networx. Agencies took about 33 months more than
expected and the government ended up spending almost $400 million more than it
should have for telecommunications services because of these delays, according to
the Government Accountability Office.

GSA is not following the "one-big contract" model as it did under Networx.
Instead, it's going with a series of contracts, all providing an assortment of
services.

EIS is the major acquisition, however. Under EIS, vendors would provide
traditional voice/video/data and data-center services, plus emerging services that
are delivered as managed services or under a self-service delivery model.

Gallo said GSA recognizes the telecommunications market has changed over the last
decade, which was the last time the agency planned a large scale acquisition.

"If you look at the way the government is procuring services, it is — and
has been for a while now and is increasingly more and more procurements now
— at the enterprise level. So we are also organizing to be able to provide
services and be able to respond to the changes in the marketplace," he said.
"Systems and modernization of our systems, ordering, billing, inventory and
expense management, is another major initiative going on. And hand-in-hand with
the systems, is common and, to a large extent, automated processes common systems
there."

Beyond EIS, Gallo said GSA will both take advantage of existing contracts such as
Schedule 70 or the recent satellite-communications contract, and award new
contracts, such as for emerging technologies, when necessary.

GSA also is aware of the transition struggles both agencies and vendors had under
Networx.

Reducing the number of line items

Haines said one way GSA will try to help simplify transition is by reducing the
number of contract line-item numbers (CLINs) under the contract. He said there are
more than 18,000 line items under
Networx, and GSA hopes to reduce that greatly, maybe even down to around 3,000.

"The term of art our contracts and legal people like are unpriced CLINs, or under
Networx, agency-unique CLINs. That will live at the task order level," Haines
said. "Networx today, what would happen, is agencies would go out for their fair
opportunity decision, come back, make a decision, turn around and wait anywhere
from 60 to 90 to 120 days to have additional items that were not on the master
contract modified to be put on the contract so they could begin the transition
process and implemented. We aren't going to do that. Those CLINs that are agency
unique that aren't already sitting on the contract, pre-negotiated, will live at
the task order level only."